


Hail, Old Comrade

by bmouse



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon Cardassia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-02
Updated: 2013-10-02
Packaged: 2017-12-28 05:06:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/988035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bmouse/pseuds/bmouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kira visits Garak on Cardassia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hail, Old Comrade

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on tumblr. Archiving on AO3 in case my blog ever goes belly-up.

She’s not here, exactly. ‘Damar’s Faithful Subcommander Kira Nerys’ would be a tasty morsel for the ravenous recently-unleashed press and as much as he would love to see her face when she hears that title, he is quite dedicated to _reducing_ the parts of the Homeland currently on fire and so he has regretfully decided to forego the pleasure. Instead they’re wearing cloaks of invisibility which also happen to say "Sanitation Reconstruction Ministry" on the hems and eating street food at a crusty wooden stall that nevertheless manages surprisingly excellent Mapa bread.

Which she wolfs down like a starved vole with no manners whatsoever, how comforting to know some things haven’t changed. Overcome as he is by nostalgia Garak subtly nudges his soup bowl a little to the left and away from the carnage.

“It’s..” she starts to say.

The sky is green and stormy, half the trees lining their little street are still charred, diplomacy sticks in her throat .

“-a little less gloomy than the last time I came. I even saw some murals on the buildings.”

“Well it’s unfortunate to see the youth becoming a bit too forward about their need for a creative outlet. But, between you and me I’d much rather have them draw in the alleyways than riot in the street.”

Nerys fixes him with a penetrating stare, somewhat spoiled by the crumbs on her chin. He takes a sip of his bowl and, finding himself entirely unable to resist the compulsion passes her an embroidered handkerchief. In their old familiar rhythm she scowls, uses it, persists.

“I think some of them were of you - the drawings.”

Garak looks pained. “My dear Colonel, _I_ can’t help it if approved news is so slow that they _insist_ on replaying footage of my little drama with the Council. Honestly! If my regrettably plain face is clogging up the viewscreens people should do the polite, sensible thing and forget they ever saw it.”

Now that was true enough - if he lets himself think about it the idea of being seen, _known_ makes all his bones itch.

(And it had been slightly more than a little drama - he’d spent his time on the floor two wrong words away from getting executed - but it had gotten the law passed. Ziyal’s law that she had drafted in Kira’s quarters in her neatest penmanship in her oldest sketchbook, the law that ensured half-Cardassians could claim citizenship, eroded legitimacy checks and was all in all a neat little knife in the spine of the Homeland’s unspoken caste system.)

“Of course, ” he continues “now I find myself firmly in the grip of morbid curiosity. You’re a cruel woman, and even though you know I’m much too busy to pay court to public opinion I shudder to think at how I’ve been mis-”

“You were on a throne. A black throne, with flowers at your feet.”

“Really?!” - a sigh, and then an exaggerated sniff “how distasteful!” but it seemed to her that while his mouth was moving his eyes gave a single slow satisfied blink.


End file.
